


Habitation

by femme4jack, fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn, Sakiku



Series: Domesticus [7]
Category: Transformers, Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Body Paint, Cussing, Disabled Character, Humor, Light Bondage, M/M, Multi, Rope Bondage, Sex Addiction, Slavery, Tentacles, Unconscious Sex, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-25 02:14:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakiku/pseuds/Sakiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Homo sapiens domesticus: Habitation<br/>On their homeworld, humans are accustomed to living in covered cubes, which they construct themselves, using local flora, fauna, and minerals.  Typically these habitation cubes measure between two and four mechanometers on a side.  Though some humans assemble very large structures, the smaller size is suitable for all of them.  Humans therefore can be housed very comfortably in terrariums the size of a work table, making them one of the least space-consumptive organics available on Cybertron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The rape/noncon archive warning is for the overall themes of this story-verse, which is neck deep in consent issues. We'll continue to use this archive warning on every installment due to the nature of the story-verse. This particular installment contains references to rape, refs to past suicide of unnamed characters, and a discussion of addiction.
> 
> Chapter 1 is M-rated. Chapter 2 is rated somewhere between M and E -- it contains potentially disturbing themes (albeit not explicit details) involving dubcon/noncon sex with unconscious and/or disabled individuals. Also includes fluffy "rope" bondage.

Shockwave tilted his helm. “So. This is what has you so distracted.”

“Jeeezus,” said one of the hominids, looking up, and up. Shockwave was a fairly large mech, and his appearance was, admittedly, somewhat unusual. 

His hands full of humans, Perceptor dripped on the floorplates. Had he actually forgotten to codelock the front doorway? It appeared he had. 

Oh dear. Perceptor hurried to put all his humans back in their little cage, and almost tripped over the disassembled parts of the metal printer for his trouble. “Oh, I -- do come in, Shockwave. I was just....” he could not for the spark of him recall what he’d been about to do. The humans protested as their tank came into view; the Trent human rapped its little fists against his fingers vigorously. 

“This is neither the time nor the place for shenanigans of any sort!” Perceptor hissed, depositing the organics with care into their cage, and keying the repulsion field that covered it. He wheeled to face Shockwave’s unforgiving bulk. He started to speak, paused, and reset his vocalizer. “Would you care for a seat?”

“No.” Shockwave surveyed the small room, single magnificent optic seeming to study absolutely everything, taking the full measure of Perceptor’s predicament. “These organics appear to have distracted you.”

“Not so,” Perceptor protested, despite his sinking sensation. “I have been accomplishing a great deal of theoretical and computational work while engaging with the humans.”

“Theoretical. Hn.” Shockwave clasped his hands behind his back, considering for a long, long moment. “Advanced evasion behaviors.”

Perceptor blinked. He most certainly wasn’t using the humans to evade his duties in the laboratory! At least, he didn’t believe he was. But what if he was wrong? “Shockwave, I am perfectly capable of directing my own laboratory in the manner I see fit, so if you--”

“Not you. The creatures.”

That sinking sensation had become a block of cast iron in the pit of Perceptor’s spark. He couldn’t stop himself from turning. Oh Primus. They’d used the steel pin from earlier to interrupt the containment field again, and had all climbed out. The Trent human was already rappelling down to the floor on the string of tied-together polishing cloths. 

Perceptor straightened himself deliberately. “I hypothesize... that they are built for that function. Among others,” he said bravely. 

Shockwave stared at him. Then, abruptly, he turned away and began to pace, deep in calculations. Perceptor tamped down the sudden nauseous convulsion of his fuel tanks. Shockwave was of the same rank as Perceptor, to be sure. Both headed very large, very successful laboratories. Both were celebrated in their fields. But Shockwave, Perceptor was all too aware, hadn’t confined himself to his workbench all these vorn. He had allies, connections -- most particularly among the military. Instead of letting his credits all pile up, as Perceptor had, he’d used his income to barter influence. And, while a dear colleague, Shockwave could also be overbearingly meddlesome. If he believed that Perceptor was truly better off without his small hominids....

“So what’s this one’s name?” piped the Sam-human, climbing over his pedes, as brave as a hatchling. 

Perceptor blinked down. “Shockwave,” he said, glancing back to where the taller scientist paced in agitation across the small room. He switched to the hominids’ language. “It means.... Radiating Electric Ripple, Which Influences Minds and Turns Them Towards Truth, Knowledge, and Discovery, Despite Possible Shock and Resistance.”

Just as they had with his name, the humans seemed inclined to shorten this one. “Truth ripple?” asked Sam, aghast. 

“Hm. A poor translation, I fear. The magnitude is greater than a ripple, perhaps. A wave? But the italicization is on the surprise and dismay that new theorems often entail, and on the irresistible act of sweeping away closely held, but false, beliefs.” 

“Aftershock? Or shockwave?” said the Trent-human, shrugging. Then added, “I don’t even see why it’s gotta have a name.”

“Or Tsunami!” said Miles, trotting over to join the other two.

Trent snorted in disdain. “Dude. It look Japanese to you?”

“Well, he is sorta lilac....”

“What, so lilac is Japanese, now?”

“Don’t think even the Japanese would have built a giant eyeball robot. Girly colors or no girly colors.”

“Hey, he’s not that girly!”

“Bunny ears are pretty girly. And you gotta admit, this thing’s got....”

Oh dear. Perceptor was suddenly very glad he hadn’t yet shared the humans’ language file with Shockwave. “Small hominids!” Perceptor hissed. “Please refrain from drawing any objectifying or gendertyping comparisons! Those statements are highly inaccurate, especially the reference to the Leporidae family.”

“Lep-what?” His humans eyed him. “Dude,” whispered the Miles-human, patting the side of Perceptor’s pede, as if in sympathy. “That is seriously weird.”

Shockwave came to a halt before Perceptor. The purple scientist studied him for a moment, and then regarded each of the small organics in turn, causing them to warily shrink back behind Perceptor’s pedes. “Organic studies is a sufficiently well-regarded field of inquiry,” he allowed at last. “However, your absence from the laboratory remains problematic --”

Perceptor slumped a little in relief. “Well now, I do intend...”

“--therefore, I will have the drones prepare quarters and laboratory space in my tower.” Shockwave studied Perceptor’s expression. “The location contains adequate space for both housing and studying your organics. And transport to your physics facilities will take only 1.2 kliks longer than traveling from here. These are the access codes, directions, drone directive codes, chemical stores inventory, equipment list, the....”

Perceptor nearly fumbled the file transfer, scattering bits in his startlement. “Shockwave, I have been to your -- I don’t need directions -- wait, please. *What*?"

Shockwave fixed him with an intense gaze. “It is the only logical solution. Your organics would deactivate in the smallest accident, if stored at your physics laboratory. And this is not a suitable space for study.” Shockwave turned his helm to critically examine the three little organics, who had turned to poking through the remains of their risky game using long trillythium rods. “My facility, on the other hand, is quite large and fully stocked. I will have one of the private wetwork laboratories prepared. All its work surfaces are seven-alpha-crosslinked metalmesh, very suitable for organics, and very easy to clean. I project that you will find this useful; the internals of organics are typically even more damp and odorous than their externals.”

Alarmed, Perceptor turned several of his optics on the humans. No, they had not purged their fuel or waste tanks; neither were they exerting themselves enough to activate their wasteful evaporation cooling systems. He had just cleaned, them, quite thoroughly, in fact. Shockwave must not have had the company of many organics if he already thought their current state displeasing. But to be talking about their insides... “You are referring to dissection?”

Some of his dismay must have shown in Perceptor’s field, because the other scientist tilted his head curiously. “You do plan on committing to a second branch of study centering around this species of organics, do you not?”

Perceptor hastily vocalized a glyph of affirmation. “Certainly. But... dissection? Shockwave, I do not intend to dissect any of them. Of course I will study them, but dissection is not necessary. My interests lay mainly in their social interactions, both between themselves and with mecha. And... I am considering returning them to their native environment.” Perceptor looked up quickly, steeling himself before his field could show his conflicted state. “As a further experiment in their psychology.” 

Shockwave tilted his helm a little, optic flickering as he switched between spectral layers. “Very well. Nevertheless, there is sufficient space to set up a wet-environment workspace should you change your mind. At what point in your inquiry do you wish to return them to their planet?”

“I... do not know,” admitted Perceptor, feeling very much as if he’d lost control of this whole situation. Control, he reflected, had probably been a hopeless cause ever since the humans arrived. “I have not yet formulated my experimental methodology.”

“A small transport vessel can be commissioned when you need it, however --” Shockwave considered. “--such vessels typically lack sufficient scientific equipment. You may wish to consider waiting to join a larger scientific mobilization. A colleague at the Vosian sciences academe recently confided that he was dismayed by the recall of several of the mobile scientific crews on Arquitex. Transporting one of the large aegis-mecha, like Oceanus, and all his distillers, is no minor matter. I know of only one recently-discovered world with significant aqueous seas and resources worth the trouble of occupying.” 

Perceptor thought that over. “How soon do you anticipate that Vos will move?”

“Within the decivorn. Perhaps even within the next fifty orn.”

Two to eight years, by the humans’ reckoning. It was little more than the flicker of an optic. Vos must want a slice of the trade on Earth very badly, indeed. A transport large enough to move one of those aquatic mecha -- vast scientific platforms, all on their own -- would have to pass very near Cybertron, as no other space bridges were large enough for such vessels. It wouldn’t be difficult to wheedle a place aboard such a ship... 

Perceptor looked down to his humans. The Miles one had taken it upon himself to inspect Perceptor’s pede more closely, examining his plating up to the knee joint for signs of abrasion. The Trent-human had placed Sam in a ‘headlock’, as retribution for some imagined slight. Exotic planets were hazardous places, even for fierce little organics. But Miles and the rest would live another only half a vorn, or perhaps a little more -- Perceptor could certainly take that much dedicated leave. If he could stay with them.... “That seems as if that would meet my experimental requirements quite adequately,” Perceptor found himself saying, before he could dwell upon that last thought too long. 

“Very well.” Shockwave nodded. “I shall see that a driller undergoes final modifications and is prepared for the journey.”

Perceptor cycled all his optics. “*What*?”

“A driller would provide both rapid transport, and protection against hostile native species or inclement conditions.”

Perceptor rubbed at his helm. “The most dangerous natives are these humans. The planet has extensive road remnants. And you can’t... what would it consume? Shockwave, this is an organic planet. How would I even get it there?”

“Thus the modifications. Earth’s projected ore and mineral deposits can sustain a small specimen.” Shockwave paused. “I can commission an additional space vessel to transport it there. Additionally, I am eager to test the beast’s suitability as a common transport mount.”

Primus below. What mad mech would willingly climb aboard a *driller*, especially one only partially controlled by Shockwave’s system of prods and circuits? But -- “You... you wish to accompany us?” Perceptor asked, startled.

“It seems only logical, especially if you plan to set our joint ventures aside for a half-vorn in order to pursue this new course of study,” Shockwave said, unfazed.

“I’m honored, Shockwave, but surely--your other projects, they--”

“Additionally, I find myself curious as to how mechanoid life forms might adapt their forms to an entirely organic world. Mimicry would be difficult at best, and static structures are unsuitable. It would be interesting to devise an experiment series to determine if Cybertronian life forms would be able to pass undetected in such a world. Perhaps through the evolution of a pseudo-organic exterior shell? It will require test subjects, of course, but transporting a few glitchmice, as well as a selection of other cyberfauna, should be easy to arrange.”

“I--” It was obvious Shockwave would not be dissuaded, though such an impulsive decision was unusual, given Shockwave’s usual methodical approach to such things. Had the other mech also been intrigued by the humans? Or were there other reasons behind Shockwave’s sudden desire to journey beyond the confines of his lab? “I ... would welcome your assistance,” Perceptor finally said, setting his questions aside--for now. Then, hearkening back to Soundwave’s original proposal, added firmly, “but no drillers.”

Shockwave’s field reflected his disappointment. “Perhaps a stasis-locked immature endospore--”

“No drillers, whether immature or adult, active or spore. None. Zero.” Perceptor’s tone left no room for argument, his field unyielding.

Shockwave’s single optic regarded the smaller mech. Then he inclined his helm. “--as you prefer. I still believe, however, that we should take precautions. Alien worlds can be lethally unpredictable.”

Perceptor vented. “Very well. Reasonable precautions do seem justified, if not entirely warranted. But they must be *reasonable*,” he stressed.

Shockwave nodded, though it seemed more an expression of thoughtfulness than proper agreement. He considered his left hand, seven fingers flexing. “Certain chassis modifications could be in order. Additional weaponry, perhaps.”

Perceptor relaxed a little. Chassis mods certainly weren’t too extreme -- for the most part. An internal multi-purpose laser, which could also be deployed as a small weapon, might be quite useful. A scientist could not support large ones, given the power-consumptive assay equipment already lodged in his limbs, but then, they hardly needed powerful weapons on this little planet. Perceptor looked over his three small, wiggly, slippery charges, and realized that there was, however, something he needed more than a laser. “Now that you mention it, Shockwave, there is one modification which I could use.”

“Oh?” The purple scientist asked.

“I need to have an extra pair of arms installed.”

Shockwave inclined his helm in a solemn nod. “I’ll comm the medics. What kind would you like?”

 

\------------

 

"I haven't given them a nanoklik of even tertiary processing, with the rust plague on Chaar and the outbreak of code-resistant scraplets in the Stillax quadrant." Ratchet snapped. Frag it, First Aid had been showing so much potential, too, but was proving to be thoroughly distractible by minutia during his Towers residency, and far too controlled by his emotion centers. "First Aid, they are a fad that will be out of fashion in twenty vorn. Likely less. So long as the Towerlings don't get them stuck in their internals like they used to with those fragging stim beatles -- why any mech would want a technorganic parasite crawling all through his conduits is beyond my ability to process -- I could care less what sort of perversions they practice." 

First Aid compressed his armor even more tightly. "Stim beetles couldn't communicate above basic binary."

"And you are saying these organics are something different?"

"Yes! Yes, Ratchet. They are capable of complex, intuitive thought. They exhibit compassion, commitment, higher level social interactions -- Ratchet, I saw a chronicler cohort practically courting one, its mannerisms were so familiar and compelling to the carrier's coding. Their intelligence puts them in a completely different category than a stim beetle, or anything we've imported from organic or technorganic worlds. And they are being used as interface toys against their will."

Ratchet paused, grumbling and blurting a comm-command to his terminal to call up and forward some of the relevant data. He finished scanning and integrating the summary in a few nanokliks. "Well, they are a higher order organic species, but it appears the legal agreements for their indentured status are all in order. They *volunteered* for this, First Aid, in exchange for fuel, shelter, and a function for themselves along with economic aid for those back on their homeworld. Incidentally, it appears they had doomed themselves to extinction, and that these trade compacts have saved them from that fate."

"Do *volunteers* extinguish themselves in despair over repeatedly being raped in captivity?" First Aid countered, his field flaring and clashing briefly with his mentor's own before he controlled himself and pulled it appropriately tight. 

"Unsparked beings do not extinguish, First Aid, they die, and they do so all the time while replicating themselves even faster. You are cybertromorphosizing them, and assigning feelings and motivations that are beyond them." 

"Ratchet, have you ever even met a higher level organic?" First Aid said softly, not daring to reach out with the sad interference patterns that were rippling through his electromagnetics. Not when Ratchet had, time and again, made it so clear that First Aid’s overclocked empathy was more often a weakness than a strength.

"When would I have time to? I'm up to my chevron in the medical issues of the empire. Real medical issues, First Aid. The psychological health of interface novelties, no matter how well the creatures can copy a mech’s behavior, are not high on that list." 

First Aid shuttered his optics briefly. “If I bring one to you, will you meet with it? Look at it, at the very least?”

Ratchet shuttered his optics and rubbed his chevron. First Aid had been an unquestionably good student, self-possessed, impeccable in every way. It would be a loss to them all, if the young medic continued down this obsessive path. “Very well. But only if, once I examine it, you abandon these ridiculous notions.” Ratchet pinged his staffing control, sorted through a few files. “There is an open position on the millitary base of Termis 3. I will have you transferred there to complete your residency.”

First Aid hesitated. The holding was a distant one, the planet thoroughly irradiated by a dying sun. It was no place at all for soft-bodied organics. “You will interact with one of the humans, first?”

Ratchet ground his gears in irritation. “I will.”

“Then... yes. Agreed.”

 

\---------------

 

In just a few short orn, Perceptor and the humans arranged one of the large laboratories in Shockwave’s manor very much to the organics’ liking. 

An expanse of soft metalmesh rug had become a miniature gambado pitch of sorts, where all three often raced and sported. A mid-sized storage cube, hardly a mechanometer in every dimension, became their preferred resting place. The humans insisted upon an opaque one, citing a need for ‘privacy’ - a bunker, according to them. It was a place to retreat to, where they considered themselves unobserved by mecha. The cube blocked some wavelengths of light, but did nothing to prevent most scanning, a fact which Perceptor had not yet found the spark to tell them. They’d been so pleased with the simple thing...

The humans were pleased with other things, as well. They seemed to enjoy the small pede guards, which Perceptor had managed to synthesize with some trial and error. They employed the devices with relish, treating bits of scrap or some of the hatchling playthings as crude balls of sorts, which they threw or kicked between one another. 

But they loved -- adored, even hoarded -- a handful of the hatchling playthings most of all. 

Hatchling toys were hardly machines at all. They were all very simple, and usually coded to prevent newsparks from inadvertently incorporating them. Some used tiny, crude engines to harness the electromagnetic field of Cybertron and move about on simple wheels. Others produced a steady current when exposed to light, or created interesting datascapes when initialised in the correct sequence, or projected softlight hologram games that tested a hatchling’s dexterity. 

The humans seemed to care little for this last kind of sparkling devices, which they could not trigger, and treated the playthings as seats, or used them to prop up other objects. But the perpetual motion engines, solar panels, cold fusion canisters, constant light emitters -- these, they promptly stashed away as avidly as a lileth bird might hide a shiny object. 

In addition to the bunker, the humans had rebuilt their original habitation cube, too, so that they could come and go as they pleased. They insisted on having two sources of water -- a cold one to drink from, and a body-temperature one to shower in. They fashioned tiny suits of armor for themselves out of carefully-stitched microfiber, and wore the leg sections almost all the time. And, after much work, they even assembled musical instruments of a sort, on which they seemed to enjoy banging and plucking in odd little discordant rhythms. 

Perceptor soon grew grateful indeed that he had separate recharging chambers. 

With plenty of playthings and activities, all three of the humans developed significantly happier, calmer demeanors -- even the Trent human, to some extent. 

It was only then that Perceptor had felt it prudent to leave them to their own devices long enough to undergo the surgery for the secondary pair of arms. Of course, Shockwave had offered to visit them several times an orn, and they were constantly being monitored by surveillance cameras, drones and lab assistants, but Perceptor liked to think that they had formed a special attachment to him.

He was curious as to how they would receive him, seeing that he had been away for nearly two orn. He had done a full shift at his physics laboratory, spent his down-time getting the necessary frame modifications, and then done another shift so that Shockwave had no reason to intimate he was neglecting one branch of study in favor of the other.

It was high time that he checked up on his humans.

Perceptor entered the laboratory containing the hominids, taking care for how the shift in his primary arm placement had changed his action radius. 

His shoulder assemblies had been retooled to contain second sockets, including the tensor cables and the fuel lines necessary to support another arm on each side. The primary joints had needed to be shifted forward a bit to make way for the secondary ones, placed slightly lower and towards his back. His entire torso had been thickened with additional support struts so that the new pair of arms would be able to lift nearly the same amount of weight as the old one, reaching a combined load of nearly 1.7 times his current maximum. He was very satisfied with that outcome.

The only negative was that the arm assemblies themselves had not been mounted yet. The strut-deep modifications of his frame had to settle first for an orn or two before any stress could be placed on the welds, and so his equilibrium was a bit out of focus. Not only because of the gravimetric imbalance due to the shift in mass center, but also because of additional programming. 

The code for his new appendages was already nestled in his motion cortex, just waiting to unfold fully as soon as he had the necessary hardware. It was uncomfortable to have an unopened package like that in his processors, a constant reminder that there was something off, something awaiting his attention.

Thankfully, it would not take long until the second half of the surgery. It was highly aggravating to be so disbalanced -- Perceptor very nearly tripped over one of the hatchling toys the humans had left scattered about on the floor of the laboratory.

A cursory visual scan for the small hominids revealed nothing. Had he arrived during one of their startlingly frequent down-times? They recharged several times an orn, so they might have withdrawn to rest. And indeed, upon adjusting the wavelength of his scans to include infrared, he discovered that they were clustered together in their favorite recharge spot. Their elevated heart-rate showed they weren’t recharging; however, they didn’t seem to have noticed him enter the room, either.

“Greetings, directed unto Trent-Sam-Miles,” he vocalized, in an attempt to draw the humans out of their bunker.

A few nanokliks later, Perceptor could hear rustling coming from the unit. “Hi! Good morning!” warbled the Miles-human, from within the bunker. The Sam human poked his helm out first, blinking, rubbing at his wet little optics. The Trent human barreled his way out behind. “Outta the way, asshat,” he said, pushing at Sam’s shoulder in a way that, Perceptor hypothesised, indicated both dominance and a rough kind of affection. But, in his own way, Trent seemed pleased to see Perceptor as well. “Where the hell you bee....”

Upon spotting him, the organics abruptly aborted their reciprocating greetings and stared up at Perceptor with opened fuel intakes. The Trent human was the first to recover, shaking his head, olfactory unit wrinkled. “The universal constant of geek-dom: hunchbacks.”

“Oh my God, Percy! What happened to your arms - back - shoulders?”

“They are essentially unchanged, Miles,” Perceptor stated, a little confused. The humans were so often confounding -- truly a delight, because it meant there were always new things to learn about them. “Their positioning has been altered slightly for optimal load-bearing efficiency, and in order to align the strut triangulation for the new pair.”

“The new pair of *what?*”

“Oh, fuck, there are holes in him. Right there in the side!” The Trent human had circled to Perceptor’s left, apparently for the purpose of gaping at the new attachment sockets. “He looks like he was fucking mauled by a bear!”

Sam looked up, biting his lip in concern. “Did you get in a fight?”

"Of course not. I am not a warframe scientist. I have neither the build nor the coding for such proclivities. I spar with hypotheses and data. Not, mind, that my armor or defensive capabilities are in any manner substandard, small hominids," Perceptor added. Perceptor’s and Shockwave’s laboratories jointly produced new prototype armor materials every few vorn, some of which Perceptor later integrated into his own plating. For experimental purposes, of course. "I am certain even your now-extinct Ursus spelaeus or Ursus maritimus would be capable of inflicting only very minor damage that the three of you could buff away in just a few bream. And as to your aforementioned inquiry, my frame has been modified to have a second set of arms installed, in order to more capably convey the three of you in jeopardous circumstances, such as when members of the Ursidae family are present." 

The humans’ optics shuttered several times to signal that their slow wet-ware processors were busy parsing his sentence. Language buffer overflow. Perceptor was used to that reaction by now; that was why he tried to keep to short and concise statements. Every now and then he forgot himself, though. After all, the humans had no trouble following longer monologues in real-time when conversing amongst each other. He was still busy determining the reason for that dichotomy. He was already trying to articulate himself in the manner usually reserved for sparklings with their literal and inexperienced processors -- very high precision in glyph and statement choice, so that the conversion to machine-level understanding had to deal with as few ambiguities as possible. What else could he do to simplify his speech?

Finally Sam completed his parsing process. “You are getting another pair of arms so that you can *babysit* us better?” 

"Your language is astonishingly imprecise. I fail to comprehend how you care for your infant offspring by sitting upon them, considering the size difference and the lack of an exoskeleton in your spawn. Perhaps you refer in a metaphorical sense to those species that sit upon embryo incubation vessels in order to keep them warm and protected. But if you mean to better protect and care for you, then, yes." 

The organics exchanged glances, a way of silent communication Perceptor had already flagged for further study. They seemed to understand one another without wireless contact or even a meshing of fields.

The Trent human scrunched up his face and stomped off, while Sam smiled weakly up at Perceptor. “Ok. We get it. Just... please don’t grow any more, ok?” 

Miles nodded emphatically. “Yeah, another pair, and there’s no way we can call you anything but Bugzilla.”

 

\-----------

 

"Either of you dickwads ever do any hard stuff? I mean, more than just a joint at a party." Trent sounded unusually thoughtful as he posed the question into the darkness of their bunker cube. "Not that you two ever got invited to parties," he added as an afterthought. 

"Nope," Sam said quickly. 

"I had this aunt who did shrooms, and I tried them once. I became a psychedelic mermaid with hentai-size tits and got screwed by these octopus creatures," Miles admitted easily.

"You know, Miles, as much as I already fucking know about you, I didn't need to know that," Trent said, smacking Miles in the head, making him yelp. "I'm talking dope or meth or oxycots. Shit like that," he added.

"Why you ask?" Sam 

"I think we're addicted to the fuckers. I go as long as I can without it, and it's like the worst fucking shakes ever. Feel like my skeleton is trying to crawl out of my skin."

A kind of near-silence settled over the cube, the sound of three very-much awake young men blending with the odd electronic noises of Shockwave's tower. 

"I'm going to fucking quit," Trent announced after several minutes. "Not gonna be some fucking alien junkie. Either of you joining me?"

"Maybe," Sam said quietly, knowing that he probably wouldn’t. 

"I'm not giving it up," Miles added. "It's way better than being a mermaid."

"Yeah, I didn't think you would," Trent said bitterly.

"But I'll help you, dude. Whatever you need. Okay?" Miles added earnestly.

"Whatever. Go the fuck to sleep."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is rated somewhere between M and E -- it contains potentially disturbing themes (albeit not explicit details) involving dubcon/noncon sex with unconscious and/or disabled individuals. Also includes fluffy rope bondage and humor, appropriate and otherwise.

Suggested viewing before this chapter:  
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ItfWY3xMQ>  
Because Shockwave really is a bad shot.  

 

==========

 

"That's... that is *wonderful* news, Thundercracker.  What did you use to treat him?" First Aid gripped the private communications console in Blaster's office.  He didn't dare use any communication system in Kalis Tower.  "Or did he spontaneously recover?" The humans did have relatively sophisticated defense systems when it came to disease, not to mention outstanding biological self-repair systems, for organic beings.  
  
The blue flyer shifted, his wings twitching slightly.  He was uncomfortable.    
"Thundercracker, please, what changed with Chip?  We need to be able to implement the treatment with the others."  
  
"I... They might not want to. I had to interface with him, First Aid.” The wings were hitched high in a tense setting. “Nothing else was working.  His temperature was well outside of his species’ norms.  He was not metabolizing his fuel.  It was Chip’s idea, during a coherent moment.  He theorized that he was in some sort of withdrawal.  I've interfaced with him at least once an orn, and have seen a steady improvement.  He has recovered enough for you to attempt to correct the injury to his spinal strut."    
  
First Aid felt something in his spark seize.  Primus below, the implications -- three of the humans had died of the fevers that had started a couple orn after their rescue.  Several of the others were in a state akin to deep stasis.  The ones who were fine... was it because the mecha they had been placed with were interfacing with them?    
  
He’d promised those he'd rescued fuel, safety, shelter, and freedom from the constant rape they had been subject to since their enslavement.  Breaking that promise felt like betrayal.  Letting the little creatures extinguish on an alien world felt even worse.    
  
Just thinking of Chip, enduring such violation again, after being injured so horribly... it was Chip's plight that had first put First Aid into contact with Thundercracker and his colleagues.  
  
"He is well, First Aid," the Seeker assured him.  “The fever resolved in half an orn, and his strength returned soon after.  And my... the interfacing does not harm him.”  
  
"I promised him..."  
  
"You promised the human that he would be safe.  Now, he is."  The seeker held his wings implacably high.    
  
Chip, perhaps, would agree... but he had evidently chosen to interface again out of his free will. The other humans though... First Aid had *promised* them they would never have to take a plug again. Would it damage the less stable ones, to suddenly find out that there wasn’t a choice after all?  
  
Thundercracker interrupted his thoughts. “Will you repair Chip on your next visit?”  
  
First Aid began to nod, then paused.  He’d spent the last few decaorns assembling what he could about the humans’ biology, the way their bodies worked.  And he’d installed new fabrication patterns and acquired a handful of microspinarettes, with which to both produce carbon-dense compounds that wouldn’t be rejected by human bodies, and to inject them correctly.  He had some theories.  But no experience whatsoever, and absolutely no coding to guide him.  Only the desire to heal.    
  
"I... I would like to take Chip to meet one of my colleagues, and get his opinion on the spinal-strut reconstruction.  It might also be a means of gaining a new and important ally to our cause."  First Aid watched the cant of Thundercracker's wings anxiously on the screen.  He modified his glyphs carefully, making it clear that Ratchet was not currently an ally.  Thundercracker would not abide any information being withheld.     
  
“Absolutely not.  I will not have him taken from my care and exposed to someone who could harm him.  Choose another.”  Thundercracker gestured with swift and violent finality.  
  
“Thundercracker -- I... it wouldn’t...Chip is uniquely suited to win him over.”  
  
Seekers were protective.  While First Aid had relatively little experience with their build, he knew they were as dangerous as a carrier whose symbionts were threatened. The airlords of Vos were all warframes in addition to whatever other function they held.  
  
Thundercracker's snarling response only validated First Aid's thoughts. "Do not put me in the position of having to deactivate a medic, First Aid.  You know the only reason you aren’t piecing mecha together in Kalis is that Chip was not under my protection when his injury was inflicted."    
  
Then again, an airlord would just deactivate the offender. Chronicler-carriers tended to favor a slower, more lingering revenge. They would ruin the mech’s reputation, his finances, his social life, his employment status, ruin him completely before they *might* have the mercy to shell out the creds for a deactivation contract.  
  
Blaster would probably -- actually, First Aid didn’t know what Blaster would do if Raoul was harmed or, worse, terminated.  And for all his huffing, Tracks was a great deal more attached than he liked to let on.  For a little organic to garner such loyalty in just a few orn of exposure -- it was uncanny.  Impossible.  But First Aid was counting on the effect, and on Ratchet’s interest in anything medical, all the same.     
  
“Well hello there, First Aid!”  
  
On the screen, Thundercracker froze.  Something whirred unsteadily.  And then Chip floated up into camera range, the little human comfortably seated in a chair-like device equipped with -- if First Aid was not very much mistaken -- several military-grade antigrav nodules.  The big airframe reached out to steady the little chair, as he might do for a hatchling still new to his first wings.  Chip waved at First Aid.  “How’s the weather there in Kalis?”  
  
First Aid’s fingers tightened on the edge of his console as a surge of guilt and relief swept through him.  “Nonexistent as always, Chip.  Many pardons, but if you will excuse us for a moment?  We were discussing--”  
  
“Me?”  Chip grinned.  “Might not be able to make sense of whole strings of Cybertronian, but you both pronounce my name the same way.  ::Chip::, the same glyph as for a decorative gap, correct?”  
  
Belatedly, First Aid realized that the glyph was a distinctive one.  A keen human ear might be able to pick out the emphasis even when the word was sandwiched between many other glyphs.  “You’ve... been practicing your Cybertronian,” First Aid said, processors scrambling to try to figure out how convince Thundercracker to...  
  
“Yup.  Written lexicon is up to almost a thousand glyphs,” said Chip, tapping his helm.  It was quite an accomplishment for an organic, First Aid knew, even if sparklings achieved the same in their first breem or two, at the latest. “Been tinkering with some of this spare hardware, as well.”  The little human leaned forward, wet optics narrowed.  “Know why?  Because I feel better, that’s why.  So you’d best not be giving TC a hard time.”  
  
“I wasn’t--"  
  
"Then what *were* you two talking about?  If it concerns me, you'd better tell me."  Chip managed to sound so very soft-spoken and gentle, yet First Aid knew that beneath was a will every bit as strong as Raoul's, perhaps even more so.  What the humans lacked in processing capacity, they more than made up for in sheer gumption.  
  
Thundercracker growled, engine rumbling low and wings slanting downward in an instinctive threat display--one aimed at First Aid, and undeniably intimidating regardless of the fact that the medic was half a world away at the moment.  
  
Chip looked to the big warframe, his expression one of trust and affection, if First Aid was reading his expression correctly.  "TC, remember that conversation we had, about freedom versus safety, and which is more important to me?  I'd like to know what you two were speaking about, and have the freedom to make my own choice."    
  
"That... might be a very difficult thing for a warframe to allow you, especially a Vosian Seeker," First Aid explained gently, hoping Thundercracker regarded the sincerity of the medic’s words even without being able to take the full measure of his fields.   "For our warriors, the safety and security of those under their protection is prioritized within their decision matrices.  Freedom is only of secondary importance.  The course I propose... could put you at risk."  
  
"I need to know all my options," Chip stated firmly.  “Then we can discuss safety.”  
  
"Tell him," Thundercracker rumbled.      
  
First Aid vented slowly. “I have never done such a complicated procedure on organics. I would like to get a second opinion from my guild mentor -- ”  
  
“Isn’t that beneficial for my safety?” Chip interrupted, with a long look at the seeker.  
  
Thundercracker’s glower verged on murderous, and First Aid hastened to continue his explanation. “I would need to take you to him personally, because he is very busy, and I hope that meeting you would show him that humans aren’t just some organic drones.”  
  
Chip’s wet little optics narrowed a little, and he tapped his fingertips lightly on the arm of the chair.  “I see.  So he’s not real fond of the leaky types.”  Chip spoke from experience, First Aid knew.  No few mecha found the very thought of organics revolting, even if humans leaked significantly less than the average organic.  “Perhaps TC could come along?”  
  
First Aid paused.  “Seekers... don’t always do well in medical situations.”  Not when a cohort-member was under the rotary saw.    
  
"I would like to go," Chip said firmly.  "This is bigger than just me.  I'm not the only person who's been injured, and as you've said, First Aid, we need someone who can better handle those injuries.  Not to mention the withdrawal issues. Haveta admit, I’m not impressed with the xenoveterinary class.”  Several, First Aid knew, had recommended euthanasia -- one had  even been fool enough to do so in front of Thundercracker’s faceplates.     
  
"Then I shall accompany you."  Thundercracker pronounced, every bit the guardian of those crafted by the infamous creatormecha of Vos.  First Aid vented deeply and tried to look on the bright side -- Maybe Ratchet would be impressed by an Alpha Seeker taking an organic under his protection.  Maybe Ratchet would refrain from antagonizing a high-clade flyer; maybe Thundercracker would keep his talons out of all things medical.     
  
And maybe First Aid was living in a sparkling’s happy holovid world.    
  
First Aid vented a heavy sigh, and nodded.  He might as well start packing his things for Termis 3.     

  
  
==========

  
  
“What the fuck are you doing, Tentacles?”  
  
“...nothing.”  Another cautious daub at Raoul’s hair, different from being stroked and petted, like the mechs loved to do.  Fuck if he knew what it was about the hair.        
  
"Nothing, my ass."  
  
"You spend so much time makin' us look pretty.  Thought I'd return the favor,"  Blaster said innocently, adding another daub of whatever the hell it was to his hair.  
  
"Hombre, do I even wanna know what you think's pretty?"  
  
"Hm.  I think you'll like the results.  Or at least being appreciated for 'em."  Blaster's voice had taken on that crooning, smooth-as-silk tone that just did things to Raoul.  Really, really good things.  How the hell did someone who looked that freaky sound so sexy?  Made him wonder what the big mech was up to.  
  
One of the smaller tentacles slipped under his shirt and started tracing some sort of pattern on his chest.  He decided to help out by taking the wax-smeared garment off, and slipping off his pants for good measure.  He dumped both of them off the side of Blaster’s chest.  It was getting kinda hot, anyhow.    
  
"Tell me a memory from earth," Blaster suggested as even more of his tentacles got in on the weird ass hair and body painting.    
  
Raoul yawned, stretched himself out on Blaster’s glistening chestplates.  The heavy slabs of armor were the easiest part of a mech to detail, and Buster had done a damn fine job with them, even if he was still practically a newbie.  Might be time to graduate the guy to hands and other fine plating.  "Well, before things went to hell, it wasn't so bad.  Good food, good people, family, ya know?   Mama cleaned apartments for some rich bitches in Manhattan.  We got out of public housing when I was ten.  Mama, my sisters and I shared a three bedroom in the Bronx with my tias and their kids.  It was good.”  
  
Raoul propped himself up on one elbow, and noticed an unbuffed streak of wax on Blaster’s plating.  That wouldn’t do at all.  He leaned back down, exhaled over the faint line of cloudiness, and set to buffing it out with his fingertips.  “Most of the city's flooded now, of course, so they're scraping by in Jersey, in a camp outside the Somerset compound.  Mierda, I hope they're still gettin' the commissary creds they were supposed to."  
  
"Wish I could plug in and see you there, with your family in your city," Blaster said, sounding almost wistful as he started weaving something into Raoul's hair.  Whatever it was, it tingled, and not in a bad way. "The good and the bad.  Feel what it's like to be you, then and now, and share it with the gang."  
  
Sounded a lot like a proposition.  "That's one of the things you hombres do when you get it on, right?  Share memories?" Raoul asked.  He'd watched Blaster with the munchkins (or mechkins or whatever the fuck) recently, sinking all those glowing tendrils in and making the little hermanos fucking keen.    
  
"Oh yeah," Blaster said, his voice like sex with mole poblano sauce on top.  "A lot of them have starred you lately, Raoul.  You really got yourself under our plating."  
  
"I happen to like getting under your plating," Raoul said, slipping his hands into the sensor beds just over Blaster's thick compartment thing where the rest of the gang folded up.  Was anyone inside now?  Seemed like someone was nearly always docked.    
  
"Ah ah ah, not yet," Blaster said, and Raoul found his hands getting just enough of a intense electric tingle to make him pull out.  Felt like his fingertips had gone to sleep, for a second, there.  
  
"¡Güey!  What the fuck was that, Tentacles?"  
  
"This is about you, Raoul.  Let me do this for you.  Then we're all gonna show our appreciation."    
  
Raoul raised his eyebrows, then grinned and shrugged.  Considering that this deranged little family knew how to make him scream?  He was in for a fucking awesome time. Literally.  
  
He sprawled back onto Blaster’s chest plating and let the mech do his stuff, half-dozing.  It had been a long shift.  Raoul had let Buster, Jae Sun, and Dave take Blaster and his gang, working with Tracks and Pivot.  All the newbies wanted to make the kind of credits that came with special services, and he knew Blaster and the gang could help get them past the hell they'd been through, if any mechs could.  Better than the sadistic minibot puto Raoul'd just done a full detail and special on.  Tracks even had to intervene a couple times.  Apparently Blaster had wanted to intervene in a more violent way, but that wasn't good for business.  Better just to blacklist the little fucker and ban him from any more appointments.  Wasn't like they were hurting for customers.  
  
Raoul had a feeling that the creep would end up more than blacklisted, anyhow.  Some juicy tidbit of gossip would get out and it would take like a thousand fucking years or more for the cabrón to fix his reputation.    
  
There were reasons Tracks would do just about anything to stay on Blaster's good side.  
  
His mama would've said that San Nicolás, patron of prostitutes, was looking after him.  Or maybe San Eloy, patron of mechanics. Mama had a saint for everything.  But who needed a patron saint or even a guardian angel when he had Tentacles?     
  
"So what is this shit, anyway?"  
  
"Hm, well, we chroniclers and symbionts have our own culture, right?  So we use these nanites on special occasions.  When we're courting one another.  Or when we just want to dress up.  Symbionts might put the nanites on themselves or one another, or carriers will decorate a symbiont, especially if he's had a hard day and needs some tender loving care.  Special patterns mean special things."  
  
Raoul felt that lump in his throat.  The one that seemed to show up every damn time he got to hang out with Blaster or one of his gang.  Especially Steeljaw and the big guy.  And the munchkins.  And Rammy, always so grumpy but freakin’ smart and that dry, dry sense of humor.  Damn, ok, all of them.  
  
"So you're dressing me up 'cause I had a shit day?"  
  
"You know it.  And to let you know that even if you live and work here, you're family to us.  Chroniclers take care of our family, Raoul."  
  
"Alright, alright, getting a little too mushy around here for my machismo," Raoul slapped Blaster’s chestplate, and did his best to pretend he wasn’t turning red.  “Chronicler courting nanites, right?  The stuff I put all over Rewind those first few days?  What did those patterns mean?"  He’d dipped his fingertips in the fine nanites, marveling at the pale, shimmery luminescence of them, like powdered moonlight.  Since Rewind had said they’d wash off, he’d put five-fingered blotches all over the munchkin’s helm and shoulders, while the symbiont giggled like a mad thing.    
  
"Something like, 'I did this when I was too overcharged to walk and you have the sweetest set of docks I've ever seen so why don't you plug me now, baby.'"  
  
Roaul threw back his head and howled with laughter, feeling the stress from the day just melt out of him.  "Oh Jesus fuck.  'Nice docks, baby' -- gonna fucking say that to you every time I see you, now."  
  
Blaster's whole frame vibrated with a rumbling, mech-sized chuckle.  "You think they're nice now?  One of these days, you should grab your blanket and pillow and come in for a nap, and I'll show you what nice is."    
  
Raoul grinned.  “Be an awful tight fit for me.  Not that I don’t appreciate the offer -- I just don’t fold up as well as Rammy does.”  Fuck, but that had been weird, seeing a smallish rhino -- at least twelve hundred pounds and five feet tall at his shoulders -- fold up into a brick maybe six feet long, four feet wide, and eighteen inches deep.  Mechs in root mode had a lot of empty space inside, sure, but it was one thing to know it and another to actually *see* the transformation.  And then to watch Blaster use his antigrav superpowers to just float Ramhorn inside, like he was a feather.  “I wonder if we even still got rhinos on earth,” Raoul pondered, rolling over onto his stomach when nudged, so that the light touches could trace across his back.    
  
“Rhinos?  Tell me more,” Blaster urged.  The spidery blade assembly thing at the tip of Blaster’s tentacle moved away to dip into the cannister of nanites again, but two more quickly replaced it.  The tickling-light scrapes, like a quill pen drawn across Raoul’s back, made him shiver.  Weird, really, that he didn’t think twice about being painted by knife-tipped tentacles.  Just another day at this weird-ass office.    
  
And so Raoul talked -- about African wildlife he’d only seen on film, about the city, the meth-head cabron who always hung out at the edges of his little gang of street friends, about the shitty jobs he’d had for a while at a string of fast food places, before he’d discovered how much more lucrative fast cars could be.  Most of it seemed distant, like it had all happened to someone else, or in another life.  He rolled over and closed his eyes when Blaster said to, while the tentacle tips daubed and tickled acorss his front.  
  
“Would you like to see what you look like?” Blaster inquired at last, one of his tentacles reaching out, the tools at the tip neatly hooking a spare datapad.  Sized for mechs, the reflective surface made a very passable mirror.    
  
Raoul propped himself up on his elbows to see.  His hair... well, his head looked like some kinda techno-punk rocker--or a fuckin’ jellyfish.  There were fucking fiber optics threaded through his hair, lighting up the dark strands in a rainbow of colors.  The rest of his body, in contrast, was painted with delicate swirling lines and circles, like those henna paintings from India.  Tiny patterns nested inside each larger one.  Even the bottoms of his feet had been painted.  And his cock.   It was completely girly--and probably the sweetest thing a mech had done with him.  For him.  
  
The mechs themselves, especially Blaster's strange family-cohort-thing, sometimes seemed a freakish combination of gorgeous and ridiculous.  Now Raoul did, too.  Like he was just another member of the family.  
  
“Well, what’cha think?”  
  
Raoul had to blink a bit as he tore his eyes away from his reflection and grinned up at Blaster. “Thanks, amigo. Looks awesome. What’s it say?”  
  
“Hmm … something along the lines of, ‘I am an exceedingly sophisticated symbiont, with a great deal of interesting data and memories of places you’ve never seen.’  Also, that you’re taken, and your data is your carrier’s, a sacred bond for him to guard and to share.”    
  
“Bonded and taken, huh?”  That was one of the sweetest, strangest invitations he’d ever heard. “So, offering to share data is a symbiont’s equivalent to you offering your docks? Sure, always for you, amigo.  Go ahead.”  
  
“I’m not talking about plugs.”  
  
“Then what?”  
  
One of the tentacle-cables that had painted him with nanites drifted up, curling around his shoulder, the armor sheathing scritchy and rough.  The bladed collucation nudged at his hand, and Raoul stroked it curiously, running his fingertips over the sensitive device.  Damn thing put his own mechanics’ tools to shame, really -- the blades could split and reform into almost any device you could think of.  Apparently, some mechs had their whole hands and arms made of this, could practically move each sliver independently and make forms as strong and resilient as the steel this stuff resembled.  
  
Like a flower in fast-forward, the petals opened up, folded back all Neo - Matrix-like, exposing a blue-white glow at the core.  Almost shyly, a bundle of thinner fibers peeked out, a sheaf of radiance.  Raoul hesitated, then touched -- they felt electric and cool, like really clean water, almost slick.  They clung lightly to his skin.  Reminded him of something he’d felt a long time ago... fiberoptics, maybe.... or sea anemone tentacles, from a tidepool.  
  
But no fiberoptics had ever moved on their own like this.  And sea anemone feeler-thingies weren’t this long, he thought.  
  
The bundle separated into thin filaments, each a little smaller than his finger and glowing a pure blue-white, as the sheaf spiraled up from the articulated sheath of the tentacle.  They coiled his fingers, traced his nails, smoothed across his skin.  The strings were probably the most delicate part he’d ever seen on a mech, a dense weaving of light.  All of them were laden with static, an electric vibration that settled in his bones.  
  
“Wow,” Raoul breathed, his whole hand wrapped in those softly moving touches.  He’d seen the glow at the tips of Blaster’s tentacles before, seen the threads feed into one of the symbionts’ sockets for a moment before the spidery clamp-tool thing locked the cable into place.  They felt so light, so friendly in their explorations.  
  
“This is one of my data cables. Kind of like a plug, but a much, much better transfer rate. Plus, I don’t have to move them with my hands,” Blaster grinned and one of the tendrils *wiggled* at Roul.  
  
“Sensitive?” Raoul asked daring to stroke one of the radiant lengths of light.  The color rippled as he touched it, blue shading into warmer purple.  Raoul drew back, oddly worried about somehow hurting the big mech.  
  
“With them, I can taste your bioelectricity on your skin,” Blaster purred.  “All the cells, individually and together, each one a separate note.  Let me explore you?”  
  
Raoul watched the way those unprotected fiberoptics curled out of the tentacle casing Blaster had put into his hands. It wasn’t his first time touching one of the mech’s armored cables, but these glowing tendrils were so delicate...  Mechs weren’t invulnerable.  Kalis-the-Hutt had squealed like a stuck pig when Raoul had kicked his plug in the figurative nuts, and Raoul had the feeling he could do these unshielded filaments a great deal of damage.  Normally, they were hidden inside the tentacle sheath, behind the creepy-ass alien spider-stinger tip. But now, for Blaster to leave them so vulnerable...  
  
Instead of answering, Raoul bent down to tentatively lick at one of the threads exploring his hand. It shivered, that same pallid shade of violet flashing across the surface.  The electricity in his mouth tasted like mint and metal, tingley, alive in some indefinable way -- and unbelievably arousing, like putting his mouth on a mech’s hardline jack. Only more intense.  
  
One by one, more large cables drifted close, each of them opening to reveal their own sheaves of brilliant arctic blue.  The fine cilia spread out across his sides, his chest, following the whorls of the painted nanites until it looked like he’d been encased from head to toe in crossed lengths of light.  And the sheer *feel* of it-- oh, oh.  Every clinging strand seemed to magnetize his skin as they wrapped around his cock, cradled his balls, explored his toes and his fingers and dragged across his nipples....  
  
Several of them stroked across his lips, leaving them tingling like mad, sometimes letting him suck their tips and sometimes teasing, withdrawing.  They felt like silver in his mouth and every taste of them went straight to his aching cock.  
  
Under him, Blaster crooned a sound normally reserved for when he was about a heartbeat away from overload.  Mierda, Raoul didn’t even know how long he’d been making that sound, this all was so fucking good, and then one of the cilia tips was teasing around the head of his cock and it was so, so good....  
  
Raoul’s last thought, before the bliss swamped everything else, was that a guy could really get used to this kinda treatment.

  
  
===========

  
  
“You should know,” said Shockwave, announcing himself as he stormed Perceptor’s laboratory, “that I have hired a guard for the expedition.”  
  
“What?” said Perceptor, optics whirring as he looked up from the carrier he was painstakingly assembling.  Shockwave’s itinerary -- always dutifully shared with Perceptor ‘for the sake of efficiency’ -- had listed no meetings with any of his warframe contacts or the mercenary’s guild.  It did, Perceptor belatedly realized, contain a scheduled medical upgrade, in preparation for the voyage to the humans’ planet.  But what could Shockwave possibly have....  
  
And then his visual sensors registered Shockwave’s new frame.  And what was missing from it.  “This?!  This is what you meant by a minor chassis modification?” Some of the welds were so fresh that they were still glowing on infra-red. Shockwave was fairly criss-crossed with them.    
  
The mech tilted his helm, and hefted his new left... arm.  And the massive weapon that was apparently to replace his hand and a fair portion of his assay equipment.  “I never stated that it would be minor.”    
  
“You... Shockwave!  You do not possess the programming of a warframe!”  Perceptor could not comprehend what his fellow scientist intended to do with such a heavy weapon -- he did not have any advanced combat programming, and nor was his frame geared towards the huge energy production required to fire weaponry of that size. No matter whether it was a beam or a pulse weapon - the energy requirements were bound to be outrageous.  “Are you capable of utilizing a cannon properly?”  
  
“Certainly. The firing algorithms are simple physical equations, and the AstroMag cannon is for defense purposes only.”  
  
“You might be able to fire it, but aiming -- and an *AstroMag* cannon?  Shockwave!  What do you imagine we are going to encounter on an middling-primitive organic planet such as earth?”  Astral Magnetics was perhaps the premier weaponsmith on Cybertron.  Rumor had it that he was responsible for the Lord High Protector’s periodic cannon upgrades.     
  
“Any number of hazards exist.  Migrating Rock Lord clusters transit Earth’s systems every four hundred megavorn, and Solar wyrms, while now infrequent, can cause great damage to spaceborne vessels.”  
  
“Unprotected vessels, yes.”  Perceptor grit his dentae.  “But not entire, escorted scientific contingents!  We are far more likely to require skills unrelated to firepower.  Perhaps the ability to behave inconspicuously.  Or to...” he paused, not certain how to address his goals.  But the size of that cannon -- it even looked aggressive, like it was a thing that wanted to be used.  The weight of it had required new force multipliers that bunched under the bigger scientist’s pauldrons.  “...to make friends, Shockwave.”  
  
But to Perceptor’s surprise, Shockwave simply nodded.  “Thus the guard.  The individual whom I selected possessed adequate skills in both those regards. ”  
  
Perceptor frowned. “Still -- I think it hardly necessary to employ a dedicated guard.  Whom have you hired?”  
  
“A first rank dux, presently on leave for the vorn.”  
  
“Truly?  A first rank dux?”  There were only a few thousand in the entire warframe forces, and even fewer willing to play mercenary during their rare vorn-long leaves.  
  
“On this, I will brook no discussion,” said Shockwave.  “Our loss would be an unimaginable blow to all of Cybertron.”  
  
Perceptor’s amusement rippled through his field.  Never let it be said that Shockwave had a humble view of his place in the empire.  Still, he and Shockwave certainly had the resources.  “And... the dux’s designation?” Perceptor asked.  
  
“Bumblebee.”  
  
Perceptor set his callipers down.  “Bumblebee.  The war hero Bumblebee.  The infiltrator whose exploits turned the tide at Ganex IV?  Shockwave, tell me you’re communicating in jest.”  
  
Shockwave thought about that.  “What purpose would such a statement serve?” he asked.  Honestly, there were orn when Shockwave feared that Perceptor was beginning to pick up the illogical mannerisms of his subjects.    
  
Perceptor buried his faceplates in his palm.    
  
  
  
  
==============

 

  
Perceptor burst into his laboratory in Shockwave’s tower at a very unseemly run.  “Oh Primus, please tell me you haven’t--”  
  
Shockwave glanced up, turned.  The wetwork table behind him was cluttered with tools and vials.  “Of course not.  I merely wished to be prepared.  As soon as the human deactivates, I will begin the autopsy.  It is the only logical course, as you would not permit me to adequately study this illness at a prior stage.”  The violet scientist fixed Perceptor with a rather accusing optic.  
  
Behind him, Miles looked up from gently washing Trent with chilled dihydrogen oxide, trying to lower the unconscious human's body temperature back to homeostasis.  All three of Perceptor’s humans were arrayed on the wetwork surface, apparently blissfully unaware of the purpose to which the tools around them had nearly been put.  “Hey, big guy,” said Miles tiredly, optics rimmed in pink.  “Did you hear anything back from First Aid?  He’s not... Trent just keeps getting worse.”  
  
Perceptor’s fields and his optics flared, as he switched to English for the benefit of his humans. “He will not deactivate! First Aid has sent a treatment procedure, and while it may be ethically unsound without his explicit consent, it *has* proven successful in 97 percent of all cases.”  
  
"What is it?" Sam asked, the anxiety that never seemed to fully disappear from his voice now even more pronounced.  He cast Shockwave’s new gun arm an uneasy glance.  
  
"You and Shockwave both were correct, in a manner of speaking, Sam.  You have become chemically dependent on Cybertronian energy pulses.  Without them, neither your catabolic nor your anabolic metabolic processes function properly."  
  
Shockwave tilted his helm, considering this new data.  “An interesting development.  Perhaps we could replace his mitochondrial wetware with mechanical replicants.”  
  
"In English please," Sam said wearily.  
  
Perceptor almost corrected Sam, but forced himself to countermand that impulse.  "Your cells are now dependent upon the waveforms unique to Cybertronian sparks.  You cannot properly release the energy stored in the food cube molecules without that energy.  You also are dependent upon Cybertronian energy to construct new proteins to replace cellular components that have worn out.  You are only receptive to those waveforms when your own bioenergetic field activates while interfacing."  
  
"So when Trent went cold turkey...." Miles started, quietly.  
  
"No, it has nothing to do with a frigid Meleagris," Perceptor corrected, this time unable to refrain.  "Trent's metabolic processes are operating at only ten percent their normal efficiency, even as his cytokine mechanisms manufacture a fever in effort to combat his own dysfunctional cells."  
  
"But he'll get better, right?" The desperate tone in Miles's voice made something twist in Perceptor's spark.  "Once he gets through the withdrawal process.  Just like he thought."  
  
Perceptor gazed sadly on the two humans kneeling next to Trent's prone form.  "As Shockwave suggests, we can perhaps attempt other solutions, later.  But they will take time to develop -- and perhaps other simpler organics on which to test them.  Our only course of action is to infuse Trent with the energy necessary for his survival," Perceptor said softly.  
  
Shockwave looked up, and pinged a request for explanation.  Optics shuttered, Perceptor reviewed the medic’s data one last time -- as though First Aid's analysis possibly could have become corrupt in transit -- and then commed it to Shockwave.     
  
The big scientist took several entire nanoklicks to examine the file.  “An inelegant solution.  But a simple one.  Though it does raise the question of how we are to administer the interface protocols.”  
  
Perceptor blinked.  “You... don’t know?”  Primus, with all the surveillance in Shockwave's tower?  How could he not know?  Then again, Shockwave had been exceptionally busy in his own lab and at multiple conferences, not to mention all the times he'd been called in by various parties in the military to consult.  He likely had not even reviewed the footage.  Such matters were, understandably, low in his action hierarchy.  
  
“Hn.  The pulse will have to be propagated by the humans’ neural system, as those lines form their primary electricity conduit,” Shockwave hypothesized, “however there are no directions here as to how to create a connection. I could of course open the human’s chassis, and fashion a port that accesses its nerve tracts, but that could take several orn.  Is time of essence here?”  
  
“Yes!  Yes, it is!  Please, Perceptor, what did First Aid say?” Miles asked anxiously. The human had steadily lost facial color as Shockwave elaborated his theories. “Is it really that bad that you’d have to -- to do surgery on Trent?”  
  
“Primus, no!” Perceptor exclaimed. “I was simply unaware that Shockwave was not yet privy to the primary function for which the Towers imported you.”  
  
Sam fairly exploded. “You’re talking about the ass-rapes with your fucking huge plugs? You -- Trent -- ” Sam’s words was so charged with emotions that his vocalizations were interrupted by static-laced, choking eruptions of sound.  
  
Shockwave’s fields spoke of similar agitation.  The big scientist blinked.  “You desire to-- to interface with the organics’ systems?”  He paused, turning that over in his processors.  On the one hand, using a human in such a manner was bound to be extremely squishy and unpleasant.  On the other hand... it would certainly be a new and novel experiment.  “How?  They neither possess a proper port configuration, nor receiving filaments.”  And... Shockwave’s single optic narrowed. “Is this a Tower deviancy to which your sponsor introduced you, similar to those stim beetles a few megavorn ago?  You know that did not end well.”  Perhaps Perceptor had purged his memory files.  
  
The stim beetles *had* been a pleasant experience, until they’d gotten stuck.   “No, Shockwave, this is not akin to stim beetles. When taking proper precautions and with consent from all parties, sheathing a plug in a human can be mutually enjoyable, without any harmful effects. Humans react intensely to data packages, and they generate fascinating frequency modulations when they are close to overload.  And yes, Sam, I regret to inform you that this is the only way to administer treatment.”  
  
Sam’s vocalizer reset itself noisily. "Those bastards!" the human spat.  "They fucking did this to us, with the food cubes, or something else.  Who the fuck knows.  Maybe when they did all that other insane shit to us when we were being sorted.  Like being made into a sex slaves wasn't bad enough."    
  
Perceptor flinched.  "I am sorry, Sam.  I am uncertain how this mutation took place.  It may be the result of prolonged exposure to Cybertronian fields rather than anything that was done to you deliberately.  Xenobiology is not my field of expertise, nor is it Shockwave's. All the best xenobiologists who could study the phenomenon are offworld at the moment."  
  
Sam’s fists trembled as he stood.  “Study this?  Study him like some damn *phenomenon*?  Fuck you, Percy -- and you too, one-eye!” he jabbed a finger at Shockwave.  
  
Shockwave studied the human dispassionately.  “An unlikely scenario.  I am not equipped with such hardware.”   Though it wouldn’t be difficult to assemble, really. Why a mech would care to do so, however, was beyond Shockwave’s ability to process, and he set a tertiary thread to sorting through possibilities.  Meanwhile, Shockwave looked to Perceptor.  The smaller scientist was visibly distraught, his fields conflicted.  Perceptor would be of no use to Shockwave as an implement of science until this matter was resolved. “Do you wish to administer the treatment, or shall I?”     
  
Sam scrambled to stand between the two mecha and Trent.  “I won’t let you!  You... you keep that thing away from him!”  He jabbed a trembling finger at Shockwave’s cannon.  
  
Perceptor shook his helm slowly.  "I... Sam, Miles, I cannot allow Trent to cease to function without giving him an opportunity to express his preference in the matter," Perceptor said firmly, reaching for the canister of organic wax.  "You may help prepare him, or I will do so myself."  
  
Sam and Miles looked at one another helplessly.  "Goddamn!  This is so messed up," Sam said.    "He's not... he’s not even conscious.”  
  
"Nor will he regain consciousness unless I take this action."  
  
"Give me your wrist, Perceptor," Miles said at last, blinking away the droplet of optical moistening fluid that rolled down his cheek.  "He's gonna kill us for this." **  
  
**

**Author's Note:**

> Your clicks, comments, and kudos continue to totally inspire us! We are having so much fun working on this crazy AU, and are just thrilled it is enjoyable to others as well. Thank you so much to everyone who reads, and especially those who encourage us by letting us know. We are totally open to your ideas and questions, so please don't hesitate to share.


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